


premonitions

by k_no_b



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bedside Vigils, F/M, Hyuuga Neji Lives, One Shot, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28947918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k_no_b/pseuds/k_no_b
Summary: Following his near-death in the Fourth Shinobi War, Neji reflects on the past, present, and future.
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji/Tenten
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	premonitions

| _premonitions_ |

"You know, sometimes I have premonitions."

Neji doesn't react to this (he can't react to much of anything lately), his thoughts incapable of focusing too steadily on anything but the blips of the heart monitor. Even now, as he hears his teammate's voice, she sounds far away and not right next to him, as Neji knows her to be. That sound—of his life, so perilous, strung out in a simple beep, a line on a screen—takes up all his occupancy.

He scrambles, mentally, to hold her statement close, to wrap his hands around it. Tries once or twice and succeeds the third, digging his fingernails into it.

Premonitions, she says? That's curious. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary, really, for someone like Tenten, who was near-addicted to the supernatural, seeking it out like bees to pollen.

When they were much younger, fresh out of the Academy, one of the first things she'd done was bring tarot cards to their team practices. As usual, game for anything, Lee and Gai had jumped at the chance to learn their fortune, sitting themselves obediently in front of her. And naturally, he had rolled his eyes.

He'd watched her shuffle the cards with her quick, scarred fingers, laying them out on the grass for Lee to choose from (of course Lee had gone first).

But even Neji had not been unable to resist in stepping closer as his teammate turned over the cards. Tenten waited as Lee set them out, perusing them carefully. "What do they say?" Lee had asked, eyes wide in anticipation.

Tenten had fingered the middle card and then settled her hands in her lap. With a laugh, she had said, "Of course you would draw The Fool."

Lee had raised his thick eyebrows, intrigued. "What does it mean?" he'd asked excitedly.

"In this position, it's positive. It means you're ready for something new." Tenten thoughtfully tapped the edge of the card and tapped the second he'd drawn, left of the middle card.

Neji could not discern the image on the card, but listened carefully as Tenten factually continued, "This card is Strength. See how it's upside down? It means that you've let fear and doubt hold you back. But it's in the past now." Tenten smiled at Lee briefly and turned her focus to the card on the right.

Curious, Neji edged nearer. With his sharp sight, he could distinguish an image of a wheel. With a frown, Tenten said, "The Wheel of Fortune. It's also upside down." She paused, eyes flicking up to Lee's. He regarded her with a serious expression. Sighing, she went on, "It means that change is inevitable but, in this position, in a future situation you'll feel like you're at the bottom . . . like you have to start over. But you'll rise again. It won't be forever."

Lee had blinked and nodded his head to her in thanks. Gai clapped him on the shoulder. Neji was still looking at the cards, mulling over their meanings, when Tenten had turned to him in wary consideration. He'd turned his nose up at her and said, "There's no way a bunch of cards will tell me something I don't already know."

Tenten had quietly tidied the deck and stowed it away, her only sign of disappointment a slight furrow between her brows. "Fine," she'd casually replied when she got to her feet.

And that had been that.

Well—for the time being, at least. When Neji turned sixteen and, frankly, had become less of a snob, he'd finally indulged her, on a whim.

They'd been on a mission, not too long after their trip to Suna, and Lee had just wandered off to scrounge up dinner for them at a local pub. Tenten was lost in thought, mindlessly shuffling cards: something she did when her mind was busy and she needed something to do with her hands. Her usual token of choice for this activity was a weapon, obviously, but on this particular mission they were undercover, and therefore could not risk their identities being discovered. Tenten's weapons were tucked away inside a small scroll, currently hidden inside her pack.

Neji watched her at the corner of his eye, trying to guess what it was that was on her mind. Across from him, Gai was prattling on about the book Kakashi had lent him (not Icha Icha; Neji had checked). When Tenten started another deck shuffle, her seventh in a row, Neji faced her and held out his hand. "Alright, if you want to read so badly, I will volunteer."

Tenten stilled and blinked, drawn out of her reverie. Blankly, she stared at him before shrugging, shuffling the cards an eighth time. When she set out a collection for Neji to pick from, he was strangely tempted to cheat and use his Byakugan to determine the faces of the cards. But intuition told him Tenten wouldn't see it as amusing. With his reservations, Neji withdrew three cards and Tenten picked up the rest of the deck, neatly setting it aside.

Unlike Lee's reading all those years ago, this time, the card Neji revealed first was on the left of the other two. "Your past," she explained quietly, staring down at the card in consideration.

It was an image of a herald and beneath it, a graveyard. The image faced Tenten, staring at Neji upside down. "What does it mean?" he asked her.

"Judgment," Tenten said. "In this position, it means that there was a time you felt limited. Trapped. Doubted yourself." She glanced up at him with a curious expression.

Neji ignored her and flipped over the middle card. Neji recognized it, though this time, it was upright, unlike Lee's reading from all those years ago. "The Wheel of Fortune," he murmured, glancing up at Tenten.

She nodded with a small smile. "Do you remember what it means?"

"Change."

Tenten inclined her head at this. "You have good and bad times, like everyone. There have been changes in your relationships, and you've had opportunities open up. . . It can also mean you have an inevitable fate."

"Fate?" Tenten nodded again, eyes clouding. At an attempt at humor, he said, "It's unavoidable, then, I suppose."

Tenten did not smile, waiting for Neji to reveal his last card. When he flipped over the card, he did not miss the surprised exhale that left her mouth.

The card showed a man tied to a tree upside down. Despite his precarious position, the man's expression was smooth and without pain.

Neji looked at Tenten, waiting for her interpretation. But she said nothing for a long moment, lips pressed together. "What is it?" Neji prompted, burning with curiosity.

Tenten plucked up the card, studying it closely. When she set it back down again, Neji noted that her expression had grown further troubled. "This is The Hanged Man. It means a sacrifice must be made. For progress. It can also mean indecision. Or waiting."

"Why are you upset?" Neji asked.

Tenten shook her head and put the cards back into her deck, shuffling them one time through. "Nothing, Neji."

"Tenten."

She met his eyes. They were blazing. "He does it of his own free will. Hangs himself for someone else's benefit."

An involuntary shiver pricked the back of Neji's neck. He joked, "Tenten, you don't have to worry about me offing myself to save Lee."

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. As she turned to pack the cards away, Lee entered with a bag of food, grinning. They ate in quiet companionship, Lee and Gai getting into a back and forth over how quickly they can accomplish their mission.

Neji caught Tenten's eye as they finished off their noodles and managed a smile. She returned it, half-heartedly. It stuck with him the rest of the mission.

But Tenten's fortune telling hobby is different than what she's just revealed. Premonitions, she had said. That was another matter entirely.

Her voice comes again, still far away, so far away: "The night we left I had a dream. About the war. I've had dreams like it before, of course, but never . . . never quite this real." She takes a heavy breath. "I saw that moment—when you rushed in front of Hinata-san. When you were hit by Madara's pike. Neji. It happened so slowly in my head. It was so different in person."

She sighs again. Neji distantly feels a pressure at his side. It is harder to hear her now, voice muffled, but he makes out, ". . . you were gonna die. I saw everything. I saw it twice. I saw you die twice."

Neji is tempted to remind her that he already has come close to death once, so this time is hardly a novelty, but he doubts she would find that amusing.

He longs to open his eyes and tries, mercilessly, to pry them open. They resist, almost painfully, soldered shut by accumulated sleep and sweat. His fist clenches (or, at least he thinks it does) with the attempt. And finally, finally, after wrestling with himself for several minutes, a crack of light makes its way through.

His sight is blurry, so used to the darkness for however long it's been (days, weeks?). His muddied vision distinguishes a dark head of hair, folded at his side. Ah, so that is what the pressure had been—Tenten's forehead.

She looks up suddenly and Neji blinks, his eyes seeing clearer and clearer with each earnest effort. She doesn't scream or cry or even smile. Her face is impassive as ever, her only tell in her dark eyes. They are narrowed with focus, similar to when facing an enemy or having an argument. Steady, unflinching. It is easy to trust someone so fully, like he does, with those eyes.

"Ten. . ." he manages in a croak. He wants to lift his hand to clutch her own, squeeze her fingers to reassure her (and himself) that he is real and no longer lost to unconsciousness.

But his arm is heavy and bandaged tightly to his side, he assumes to keep himself from unknowingly scratching at his healing torso. Tenten sits back in her chair, head cocked. Her lips are pursed. When she speaks, Neji can hear the emotion in her voice, layers, layers deep, though it does not show on her face. "The Hanged Man card. I should have seen it then, but I didn't. Kinda stupid really."

She looks down at her hands, shoulders lifting as she breathes another heavy sigh. When her gaze returns, she states, "I don't want to watch you die again."

She waits for no answer, simply leans forward and sets her head carefully on his shoulder. It aches, dully. Neji closes his eyes again, a trickle of relief flowing from the spot where Tenten's head rests. He closes his eyes and lets his head lean ever so slightly to rest against hers.

When he manages to open his eyes again, it is dark. The room is cast in shadow, illuminated only by the moonbeams falling through the window and the screens of medical equipment. Tenten is curled up in her chair, a foot or two away from him, head lolling back against the pillow she'd stuffed behind her neck at some point while he slept. He can hear her breathing, running asynchronous to the blips of his heartbeat, his ever-present companion.

Their conversation from earlier in the day pricks again in his consciousness, seeping back like the medicine being pumped into his veins.

Neji has had premonitions too. There is an imagination hidden deep inside that logical brain of his, never talked about, only occasionally mulled on. The things he's seen—they're of no consequence, really. A life lived in freedom, surrounded by his cousins and aunts and uncles, days spent training in the bright courtyards of the Hyuga compound, attending Hinata-sama's wedding, holding his nephew, his niece. And there are the visions he sees of himself and his teammates—racing Lee around Konoha, asking Gai for advice over a cup of tea, being Tenten's guinea pig for her explosives and automatons. They ebb and flow into one another, taking on a dream-like quality until Neji can no longer distinguish what are his wishes and what is the reality to come.

He decides not to dwell on them too often. He is a logical man, after all, more concerned with what he can achieve with his own two hands and his brain rather than spending his time wistfully pining for something that may or may not come to fruition.

He hopes it will. But Neji has never been the type of person to cast coins into wells or pin all his dreams on a shooting star.

Tenten shifts in her chair, drawing back Neji's attention. A warmth spreads in his chest, and, yes—there is the speedy reaction of the heart monitor—but Neji takes a calming, meditative breath, pushing it far from his mind.

He'd always wondered how Tenten could sleep almost anywhere, in puzzling positions. Looking at her now—knees drawn up to her chest, arms folded up and penned in, neck at an uncomfortable angle—Neji allows his mind to dwell on the words he's held in reserve.

With a start, she wakes, shoes hitting the floor in certainty, a yawn widening her mouth. Neji's heartrate increases again, sidestepping his unbending will. She blinks a few times in the darkness before her eyes settle on him. A wary, sleepy smile touches the corner of her lips. She scoots her chair a little closer to his side, watching him.

His throat is dry, tongue stuck like glue to the roof of his mouth. And already (so soon?) his eyes are heavy again, eyelids drifting down like the lazy snowflakes outside the window.

Tenten analyzes him for a moment in the silence before reaching for a water pitcher and a cup on the side table next to his bed. She presses the cup to Neji's lips and he parts them to receive. His eyes half-close in relief, his throat soothed and refreshed. The cup drained, Tenten begins to draw back her hand, but Neji stops her with a shake of his head. Tenten pauses, hand hovering above his chest, cup in hand. They exchange a weighty stare.

He wants to say, you read me over and over, and you don't need the cards to do it. He wants to say, you're my best friend and I don't know how to tell you how much that means to me. He wants to say, as long as I have a future with you in it, that is enough.

But Neji has yet to become the person who says those things out loud. He can see the edges of it, as he drifts off again, letting his head fall back on the pillow as the medicine flowing through his veins puts him under. He is shoulder to shoulder with Tenten, walking down the road in the village. There are words coming out of his mouth and a slight blush on his cheeks, but then Tenten turns to him and smiles—with surprise and satisfaction—smiles so widely it lights up her whole face. It looks good, this scene, and Neji ponders on it as his consciousness slips away. It's just out of his reach. But not impossible, no. Never impossible. A premonition, he thinks. Of what's to come.

**Author's Note:**

> \- All of my tarot facts I got from [here](https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list)
> 
> \- [Ace of Cups](https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/ace-of-cups-meaning-tarot-card-meanings)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
